When I’m trying to establish a new habit—working out each morning or freewriting for a few minutes each day, for instance—I try to set things up so that’s it easy to get started and keep getting started, over and over, until that new habit is locked in.
That initial lock-in process is tough, which is why removing every possible friction and addressing every possible excuse not to do it, ahead of time, can be helpful.
If I know I’ll justify not going to the gym if I have to drive there, it might make sense to either work out at home or find a gym close enough that I can walk. If I know it’ll be tough carving out those few minutes for ostensibly purposeless freewriting each day, maybe I don’t let myself do something I enjoy until I’ve logged those writing minutes.
Important to note here, though, is that I’m not trying to augment and accommodate the strongest, most ambitious version of myself. These considerations are meant to address the whims and meanderings of the least enthused, weakest version of me: someone who’s too busy with other things and maybe tired and not at all interested in performing this additional activity.
Willpower and the concept of ego-depletion are useful framings for this dynamic, even if the science behind them doesn’t always replicate.
The idea is that the more stress, strain, responsibility, hunger pangs, and other such drains we face, the fewer resources (like glucose) we have available to fuel our more advanced cognitive processes, like those required to make ourselves do things we don’t want to do.
That might include a workout, eating healthier, or investing time and energy in a long-term project, like writing a book. Any time we muster the energy to do these things, we’re bypassing all sorts of impulses that would prefer we just sit quietly and passively consume, because that’s less energy expensive, and our brains and bodies are all about accumulating and conserving energetic resources.
That said, it’s possible (according to this imperfect framing, at least) to bolster our willpower by de-stressing, by staying healthy, by developing strong relationships, and by engaging in fulfilling activities. Anything that allows us to feel good more of the time can increase our willpower reserves (or bare-minimum, not drain them).
With greater willpower reserves, we’re less likely to talk ourselves out of performing habits that are in our long-term best interest.
Even from that vaunted position of being more likely to do things, though, there’ll be moments when we’re just not feeling it; when we might truly benefit from some exercise, a healthy meal, or meeting up with a friend, but the aggregated stresses of the week conspire to make binge-watching TV shows seem a lot more appealing.
It’s at such moments, when the weakest version of ourselves takes the wheel, that all those preparations can help.
One more point worth making here is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with snacks or watching TV or anything else that’s short-term enjoyable and long-term non-ideal. But most things are best in moderation, and if such activities and habits are standing between us and things we truly want or need to do, they become burdens.
So this isn’t about trying to eliminate all possible pleasure (and snacks) from our lives, it’s about setting things up in such a way that even our weakest selves are able to moderate their excesses and do more of the good stuff, more of the time.
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